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If he was supposed to lose by 50 but only lost by 48, which local columnist is most likely to run with "Kraft Exceeds Expectations"?

I'm not sure anyone has posed this POV, but you can see it going up from Copley Square.

So is this proposal one that seems like it has some momentum behind it? I know someone has already mentioned it on this form recently (sorry if that was you and I forgot). I'd love to see it go through. At least a couple of the anti-housing proposals there are so poorly written, they seem like...

Ooops, sorry, I conveyed that really poorly. That initiative would make it so that cities and towns can't set a minimum lot size larger than 5000 square feet. Municipalities can set smaller minimum lot sizes if they want, and all the existing smaller homes are perfectly safe. This proposal would...

This is apparantly a record year for ballot proposals. The full list with all their texts are here https://www.mass.gov/info-details/ballot-initiatives-submitted-for-the-2026-biennial-statewide-election-proposed-laws-and-2028-biennial-statewide-election-proposed-constitutional-amendments This...

That's... terrible. Personally, I tend to like the classical styles more than any new style from the past 70 years (with a lot of exceptions both ways). So it's genuinely a bummer that these styles are being co-opted by a bunch of far-right authoritarians. More than a couple of times now on...

That makes sense. I guess I was thinking about the B, but also the rest of the E branch, up to Northeastern.

Is there a reason this hasn't been incorporated on other Green Line branches that also have buses?

Interesting. Do you know what laws would trigger that? I also want transit agencies to be able to just seamlessly add service. But there are a couple of reasons this isn't totally crazy. (I don't know if whatever equity analysis would come from state or federal law, so these are just guesses.)...

Does anyone know where to find a copy of the actual contract with Cubic? I'm curious what the cost breakdown is for all the equipment and services.

A few things here: You skipped over any part of the bill Markey was actually promoting. It would offer $5B per year in federal grants to transit agencies to run fare-free programs. This is a bill to give money to public transit agencies. That means it is incorrect to suggest this could lead to...

Only vaguely on topic, but maybe some other folks are also bummed about Tom Lehrer dying, ripe old age of 97. I only recently learned he wrote a song back in the day about riding the Red Line from Harvard to Washington Street. Maybe others will enjoy

I generally agree that's frustrating. But to be clear, I don't think anyone in charge is skeptical that transit is a more efficient way to move large crowds. The new platform will be temporary because that's faster and cheaper to build, and the MBTA is short on time and money. People in state...

MBTA is already committed to running a bunch more trains to Foxboro, at least for the World Cup. There are some planned station upgrades. The current platform will be made high-level. There are already double tracks at the station, so they can put in a temporary second platform on the second...

It depends how many trains you want to get through. TransitMatters looked at this in their Modernizing the Old Colony Lines report (where they were also assuming electrification and raising the track speeds). One option they consider is doing the Red Line/Commuter Rail track swap in Dorchester...

A middle of the night thought, but this could be an opportunity to put a couple new streets in and chop up that megablock. Cambridge is doing that with the Volpe redevelopment, which is a similar size. Here's what the area between Merrimac, Chardon, Cambridge, and Staniford Streets looked like...

I notice this sometimes on basically any train, and not just Boston. Just a coincidence, but I've heard this problem a bunch, maybe 4-5 times, in the past couple of weeks. All on Red or Green trains. I'd actually be curious how those systems work, and if they work better on the new CRRC trains...

I think this is probably the best study looking at whether rich people move to avoid taxes. https://www.asanet.org/wp-content/uploads/attach/journals/jun16asrfeature.pdf Stanford researchers worked with the US Treasury department to track everyone who filed federal taxes with more than $1M...

I love that picture. It's taken from the roof of the Braemore, which is still there. I've thought it would be great (actually, sad) to get up there and recreate that picture now. Also, there are other photos from that roof, I think taken the same day, showing other vantages. A bunch can be...

I was just lurking, but enjoying this conversation. It seems to have petered out. What chapter are people theoretically up to now? My suggestion is this is a pretty slow timeline for reading the book. (And at least some of the discussion feels like guessing what arguments they might later...